1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing device having a preview function, an image processing method, a program and storage medium thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
A technology converting a bitmap image inputted by an image input device into drawing data independent on resolution of the image input device has been developed (for example, refer to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-23942). Processing converting a bitmap image into data independent on the resolution as above is called vectorization or vectorize, and the data acquired as a result of the vectorization are called vector data. In the technology of such vectorization, sub-information acquired at the time of generating the vector-data can be utilized as additional information not actually printed. This additional information is also called metadata. Since a variety of information can be added to the metadata, it is considered that the information needed for implementing a function is stored as the metadata.
A technology for performing region division from the bitmap has been developed. The region division is a processing that analyzes the inputted bitmap image data, divides the data into a region for every group of objects included in the image, and determines and categorizes an attribute of the each region. It is considered that the above-mentioned metadata is stored for each of the region-divided object groups.
If an image inputted from the image input device is stored as a file in a secondary storage in an image output device, a user can extract the image at any time and output it repeatedly. A function of storing the input data in a file format in the secondary storage of the image output device aiming at the reuse is called a box function, and such a file system is also called a box.
Although files in the box are the bitmap and vector data mentioned above, it becomes difficult to find out a target file from list information such as a file name and a thumbnail when the stored files increases.
Then, if the user inputs a keyword included in the target file from an operation part, and performs list display of only the files that match the keyword using a retrieval function, the user's convenience is remarkably improved.
When retrieving the object in the box, a user inputs a keyword from the operation part, and an object having the metadata corresponding to the keyword is detected.
From among a plurality of retrieval results preview-displayed on the operation part, the user will select the corresponding one, and at this time, a page region having low visibility may exist in the selected document. Therefore, a technology for determining, when the selected document is outputted, whether the page region having low visibility exists in a plurality of image data laid out in one page has been also developed (refer to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-174270).
In the above-mentioned preview-display, there exists a case where a paper document in which N pages of contents have been reduced-printed collectively on one sheet of paper is taken in by scanning and its data is stored in the box, and the data(N-up document) is preview. Suppose that the user performs the retrieval, and the object corresponding to the retrieval key word is detected in the data of the N-up document in this case. At this time, a case may exist where the detected object corresponds to only one page in N pages in the N-up document.
However, since a layout number N of the scanned N-up document cannot be recognized at the device side, all N pages will have been displayed in spite of there being only one page corresponding to the retrieval key word. Therefore, the visibility may be reduced and furthermore, unnecessary information may also be displayed.
When the preview is enlarged in order to improve the visibility, the user may take time and effort, and there exists a problem that operability will be reduced.
Likewise, even in the printing of the above-mentioned N-up document, a request that the user desires to print the document with 1-up (that is, layout number N=1) or the document with the layout number altered arbitrarily due to the poor visibility has not been able to be dealt with.